Palisades fire insurance claim — week-by-week playbook

Most insurance settlement outcomes are determined in the first 12 weeks after the fire — long before the construction estimate, long before the adjuster’s final scope. Get the early moves right and the rest of the claim follows. Get them wrong and you’re fighting uphill for 18 months.

Here’s the sequence we walk Palisades families through.

Week 1: report + secure

- File the claim with the carrier within 72 hours. Capture the claim number, adjuster name, adjuster email, claim department phone. Don’t skip the email — written records matter when verbal promises evaporate.

- Activate ALE coverage. Most policies kick in the day you can’t live in the home. Keep every receipt — hotel, rental, restaurant, laundry, dry cleaning, increased commute mileage. Photograph receipts; cloud-store them.

- Take possession of the loss site if the city allows. Photograph everything before debris removal. Walk every room with video.

Week 2-3: document

- Pre-fire photo gathering. Pull every photo you have of every room from your phone, cloud, social media. Old realtor listings. Refinance appraisals. Anything that proves what was there.

- Contents inventory by room. Use a spreadsheet template. Per item: description, quantity, age, original cost, replacement cost. Skipping the inventory caps your contents settlement at the adjuster’s drive-by estimate, which always undercounts.

- Pull permits + plans. Request copies of every prior building permit on the property from the city. These prove the additions / renovations that aren’t in the original 1970 plans.

Week 3-4: scope alignment

- Get your contractor + your adjuster on the same site walk. Adjusters write scopes in vacuum; contractor walks add line items + dispute downgrades. The walk-along is the single highest-leverage hour of the claim.

- Code analysis. Your contractor (or an architect) produces a doc listing every current-code requirement that your pre-fire home didn’t meet. Costs each line item. This is what unlocks the code-upgrade rider.

Week 5-8: first scope + dispute

- Adjuster sends initial scope of loss. Read every line. Compare against your contractor’s estimate.

- Dispute every line that’s wrong. Common downgrades: builder-grade finishes substituted for premium, square-footage measured short, hidden-condition allowances missing, demolition / debris removal under-priced. Push back in writing.

- Request the dwelling coverage limit increase if you’re hitting policy max. Extended Replacement Cost endorsements add 25-50% above the dwelling limit. Most families have one and don’t invoke it.

Week 8-12: settle the scope, lock the rebuild

- Code-upgrade negotiation. Submit the code analysis with every line tagged. Push the adjuster to approve the rider draw upfront, not in arrears.

- Sign the carrier’s scope of loss agreement. Once signed, the dwelling settlement is fixed unless you discover hidden conditions during demo. Don’t sign until your contractor confirms.

- Begin design + permitting in parallel. With the scope locked, your rebuild can break ground in months 9-15.

Where families lose 20-30%

1. Skipping the contents inventory — they accept the adjuster’s drive-by number.

2. Not invoking Extended Replacement Cost — they assume the dwelling limit is the cap.

3. Negotiating insurance after construction starts — leverage is gone.

4. Trusting verbal promises — ‘the adjuster said it’d be covered’ doesn’t survive carrier audits without email.

If you want help running your specific claim through this playbook, book a free consultation. 30 minutes, no commitment.